Roames optimised management - substation retrofit

Alliander, a major Dutch distribution system operator, is committed to embracing digital technology across its operations. When it needed to retrofit the 150kV Rilland substation owned by TenneT, its engineering company Liandon partnered with Fugro to find a cost effective, innovative solution.

Traditionally, inventory work for a substation retrofit project entails finding and collating historical information, conducting multiple site visits and designing on a diverse base from unknown sources. With work in and around substations becoming more frequent, Alliander wanted to find a way to undertake these projects more effectively, to save time and money and reduce staff exposure to on-site risks.

We implemented our Roames service, which provided Liandon with a direct solution to enable the owner and operator to manage and utilise all collected field data and to streamline their substation operations via a simple web-based service.

In just one day, Fugro surveyed the full 150 kV Rilland station using state-of-the-art 3D terrestrial laser scanners. This rapid and highly accurate (engineering grade) survey technology scans the entire substation. In contrast to the conventional delivery of survey (point cloud) data, we build an accurate 3D virtual model of the substation, creating a turnkey end product that can be viewed in Fugro’s SITE-SPOT interactive web environment.

This delivered a direct cost reduction in design and retrofit effort and formed the base for future digital asset management of the substation.

The SITE-SPOT application has been positively received by Alliander, Liandon and external contractors. The ability to view the data remotely has significantly reduced the number of site visits during the reconstruction. This is not only more cost-efficient but also has clear health and safety benefits because it reduces staff exposure to working around live, high-voltage equipment and other on-site risks.

Paul van der Horst, Technical Manager, Liandon

Key benefits

3D virtual model of a substation that can be accessed via a simple web-based service

No necessity for new software, plug-ins or training

Sites can be assessed from the office saving costs and reducing on-site risks

Engineers can toggle between 2D and 3D views, and can measure, attach notes and extract information on all components of the substation

Aggregated survey data is available as a single point-of-truth archive for future asset management predictions.